


It's Always Winter

by NeverForgetStarkiller



Series: Gingerpilot Holiday 2018 [5]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Gingerpilot, M/M, Poe's short run as a spy, Skyrim AU, but I don't think you need to know anything about Skyrim to read it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-29
Updated: 2018-12-29
Packaged: 2019-09-30 02:49:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17215592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NeverForgetStarkiller/pseuds/NeverForgetStarkiller
Summary: Day 5: Winter FantasyPoe stops for a drink and a bed but decides to tempt fate instead. A Skyrim AU Oneshot.





	It's Always Winter

Candlehearth Hall was beautiful in its own way. Poe was used to bigger rooms and shorter buildings, but this tavern was old. Older than most buildings in Skyrim – most buildings in the world, even. The way the Nord folks talked about it, Poe had thought it’d be a little more impressive.

It was just a tavern. The mead was far from the best he’d ever tasted.

Still, it was getting dark outside, and he had two days’ travel ahead of him to return home. At least he could tell people he’d stayed in the oldest city in Skyrim. Him, an Imperial, in the middle of the Stormcloak Rebellion. That would be a story worth telling. Assuming he survived the night, anyway. He’d garnered plenty of attention from the locals, and he was pretty sure he knew why. They didn’t like the look of him.

That was how these Stormcloaks were, though. Suspicious of everyone who wasn’t a pale, bright-eyed Nord like them. Poe downed the rest of his mead. This place was nothing but a testament to everything that was wrong in Skyrim. A beacon of the old ways.

“Who are you?” called a voice over Poe’s shoulder. Poe raised his head and turned to look up. A woman towered over him, her white-blonde hair tied back behind her head, body covered in steel armor, a blue cape across her shoulders. She was more than a head taller than Poe, and she stared down at him like she didn’t know _what_ he was, let alone who.

“A traveler,” said Poe.

“Imperial scum,” she said as if it wasn’t even an insult.

It was. It stung him in the worst place it could – his temper. Poe tried not to react; he didn’t quite manage. His fist clenched as he answered, “By birth, not choice.” _Relax,_ he thought.

“You did take your mead warm.”

He didn’t know what to say to that. Nords drank their mead cold when it was snowing outside. He didn’t need to pass as a Nord, though. Just a good citizen of Skyrim. “I like my drinks warm in winter.”

“And, it’s always winter in Skyrim,” she said. “Then you’re one of us.”

“I’m interested, sure.”

“Join.”

Poe smiled through the urge to tell her he’d rather pull a live dragon’s teeth with no armor on than join the Stormcloak Rebellion. The Empire might not be perfect, but the Imperial Legion didn’t sequester off sections of town for their “lesser” citizens to live. In the Imperial capital, all men, elves, and beast races lived amongst each other. That was an idea to fight for. “Is it that easy?” asked Poe.

“Report to the Palace of the Kings at sunrise, and you can learn yourself,” she said.

That was an idea.

He was supposed to start the trek home tomorrow. Then he could report back to his commanding officer, take a day off, and keep fighting the daily fight of an Imperial soldier. A fight that never accomplished anything against a rebellion that has haunted Skyrim for twenty years.

 _Or…_ The word resonated in Poe’s head. It was a dangerous word, one that his superiors hated because, for Poe Dameron, it popped up at the worst times. Gave him terrible, horrible ideas that sent him on unsanctioned quests to do something, to do _more._

 _Or, I could leave a little later in the day,_ thought Poe. _After I get some information from the Stormcloaks._

“Consider it done,” Poe said. He looked up at the woman, and, for a moment, he thought she might not go away.

Then she turned on her heel and marched off, clicking her spear against the ground every step of the way. Poe tipped the barmaid and paid for his bed, then slipped away from the prying eyes of his fellow tavern-goers to get some rest. He kept his crossbow loaded and close, just in case.

In the morning, his head told him to get out of town and stop pressing his luck. He grabbed his things and walked up to the Palace of the Kings, pushing open the doors. Guards patrolled the throne room, but no one sat upon the throne. No one sat at the banquet table, either. No sign of a court mage or any advisors.

No one, it seemed, was awake. “Hey,” Poe said to a guard by the throne. “Do you know where I should go to…” He paused. “Join the cause?”

The guard nodded toward another room. “General Hux.”

“Perfect,” said Poe. He knew that name. He knew all about General Hux. The second-in-command of the Stormcloak Rebellion, the head of their unofficial military. He was a brilliant tactician, and a cruel, hateful man, and his beady little eyes graced more than a few targets back home at the archery range.

Poe sauntered into the room with half a mind to pull a crossbow on the man and run. Even if Poe didn’t get away with it, the Empire would be better off… Poe looked up to see General Hux.

That – that wasn’t him.

Standing in the place Poe had expected to see a proud, aging Nord man with grey hair and lavish robes was someone else entirely. A man about Poe’s age. The man wore dark robes and a fur cloak that flowed down from his neck to the floor. His rich, golden-red hair brought out the flickers of color in his eyes.

“You’re the traveler,” said the man. “Who showed interest in the war.”

“That’s me,” said Poe.

Those eyes watched Poe, and Poe couldn’t help but find them familiar. They alone were what he’d expected. Bursting beneath the cold gaze was a fire that stoked every Imperial’s desire to defend the Empire.

“Has anyone ever told you you’ve got your father’s eyes?” Poe asked. He stepped closer to the table and, as he did, realized it was more than a simple table. A map covered the tabletop with the land of Skyrim. Red and blue darts littered the surface of the map. Red for Imperials, blue for Stormcloaks.

 _Yes,_ thought Poe. He’d done it again. An unapproved mission with a tremendous reward. He was looking at a map of every Stormcloak encampment in Skyrim. Along with every Imperial encampment the Stormcloaks knew about. And, from a look at all the blue darts next to one city in particular, Poe could guess what the Stormcloaks planned to do next.

“Someone has,” said the young General Hux. “No one does anymore because mine are still open.”

Poe did his best approximation of a frown. He was a little too excited to give his best show of sympathy. The old General Hux was dead. The Stormcloaks had lost their brilliant tactician, and Poe was staring down at their new plan. This war could end. Soon. “I’m sorry to hear that,” said Poe. “I didn’t realize.”

“I won’t hold that against you,” said the man. “We’ve kept the information closely guarded from your ilk.”

“You mean anyone who isn’t a Stormcloak. Fair enough.”

“No. I mean guarded from you and the people you work for, Poe Dameron.”

 _Oh, that’s not good._ The door shut behind Poe and several guards stepped forward, stripping Poe of his weapons. Poe raised his hands in surrender but smiled at the general, unbothered. “You’ve heard of me.”

“You’re carrying a bounty in the Rift, Eastmarch, and Winterhold.”

“Winterhold? What’d I do in Winterhold?”

Those eyes narrowed. “You and your crumbling Empire need to learn you have no place here. Skyrim-“

“-belongs to the Nords,” said Poe. “Yeah, so I keep hearing.”

“ _Skyrim_ ,” the general said, “can govern itself.”

The guards dragged Poe away to a cold cell below the ancient palace. They took his gear, his tiny bag of gold, all his supplies, and his clothes. They left him some rags to change into then went on their way with mutters of, “Imperial scum.” Poe had been to prison before, but this wasn’t prison. This was a holding cell. A place he would await his execution.

Young General Hux walked the leader of the Stormcloaks in to show off his prize, and Poe had to keep his mouth shut. If he didn’t, he would lose his temper, and if he lost that, he really would lose everything. He managed to hold his tongue until the leader began to leave.

Then the general gave Poe a look so cold it would have chilled a dragon’s soul. “You should have chosen a different side.”

“If I knew Nords could be as pretty as you, I might have,” said Poe.

The redhead’s ears went pink. “You-,” he huffed, but he couldn’t seem to find the words.

Poe reached a hand through the bars. “You could let me out, you know. Take me somewhere more private…”

Hux blushed, but he slapped Poe’s hand away from where it moved toward the keys on Hux’s belt. “Skyrim will stand strong without your weak Empire.”

“Maybe,” said Poe. He moved the hand to grab at a bar of the cell, his attempt to escape thwarted. “But, Skyrim’s not just the home of Nords. If the Empire falls, you’ll have more trouble from all other people your boots have crushed.”

“ _All_ people in Skyrim will be better off under my rule,” Hux said.

“You mean Ulfric Stormcloak’s rule,” said Poe.

Hux sneered and moved a hand to Poe’s chin through the bars of the cell. His fingers were as cold as the stone walls all around. Poe met those eyes and shuddered, fear far from his mind. Hux pressed a thumb into Poe’s cheek, his grip somehow light and firm all at once.

“We’ll see.”

The coldness faded, and it wasn’t until the feeling was gone that Poe saw Hux was gone, too. He raised a hand to his own cheek. As cold as Hux’s hand had been, it had warmed Poe. Had made his throat tight, had made his chest pulse with heat.

He knew what that feeling was, and it could get him in a whole lot more trouble than he was in, now.

For the moment, he had to get back to the Empire. Tell them what he knew. That there would be a Stormcloak attack, that the old General Hux was dead, and that the new one was far worse… And, far, far better.

He fashioned a lockpick from the utensil they’d brought with his food. _Perfect,_ he thought. It was by no means perfect, really, but it would do.  


End file.
